Farmers
A midwestern grain farmer said that he and his friends are nothing more than the pipeline by which money flows from Cargill to Monsanto.
A midwestern grain farmer said that he and his friends are nothing more than the pipeline by which money flows from Cargill to Monsanto.
There are barriers in our society erected by a false dichotomy between practical work and theoretical reflection. If someone develops early on a skill at repairing cars, she may falsely assume that she will not be adept at literary analysis or theorem proving. This robs not only her of opportunities but also society of a potentially important contributor to literary analysis or mathematics. The reward structure of society also assumes it, reflected in both the pay and the cost of pursuing what are thought of as the theoretical pursuits. The supposed distinction also operates on an everyday level. If one spends one's time repairing cars, one may think that one does not have the appropriate capacities to evaluate the arguments of economic "experts" on television. One might then feel alienated from such discussions and find one's sense of alienation reflected in the angry rhetoric of propagandists.
The distinction between the practical and the theoretical is used to warehouse society into groups. It alienates and divides. It is fortunate, then, that it is nothing more than a fiction.
On the one hand, its public policy agenda is essentially a defense of existing arrangements no matter their effectiveness or sustainability, apparently premised on the assumption that American women can't make cost-benefit calculations or indeed do basic math. In addition to ignoring the taxes that will be required of its businesswoman heroine across her working life, "The Life of Julia" hails a program (Head Start) that may not work at all, touts education spending that hasn't done much for high school test scores or cut college costs, and never mentions that on the Obama administration's own budget trajectory, neither Medicare nor Social Security will be able to make good on its promises once today's 20-something Julias retire.
At the same time, the slide show's vision of the individual's relationship to the state seems designed to vindicate every conservative critique of the Obama-era Democratic Party. The liberalism of "the Life of Julia" doesn't envision government spending the way an older liberalism did -- as a backstop for otherwise self-sufficient working families, providing insurance against job loss, decrepitude and catastrophic illness. It offers a more sweeping vision of government's place in society, in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life, and no decision -- personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual -- can be contemplated without the promise that it will be somehow subsidized by Washington.
-- Ross Douthat
One of the guests raised his hand; he knew how to solve the problem. The president had won plaudits for his speech on race during the last campaign, the guest noted. It was a soaring address that acknowledged white resentment and urged national unity. What if Obama gave a similarly healing speech about class and inequality? What if he urged an end to attacks on the rich? Around the table, some people shook their heads in disbelief.
"Most people in the financial world," a top Obama donor later told me, "do not understand how most of America feels about them." But they think they understand how the president's inner circle feels about them. "This administration has a more contemptuous view of big money and of Wall Street than any administration in 40 years," the donor said. "And it shows."
She added that the instant connections a person can make on the Web, which also lets them survey a broad world of possibility, can create a restlessness and an even greater disinclination to commit:
"I knew a guy, and I couldn't actually believe he was saying this, but he said, 'Why would I want to eat in the same restaurant every night when the world's a buffet?' I thought people said that only on 'Entourage'."
Dunham is one of the four main players in "Girls." She's joined by Allison Williams (the daughter of the NBC anchorman Brian), Zosia Mamet (the daughter of the playwright David) and Jemima Kirke (the daughter of the Bad Company drummer Simon). All four sat down with The Times's Dave Itzkoff recently for a spirited group chat.
Dunham has an extended sex scene in each of the first two episodes of "Girls," and I told her I couldn't quite tell whether her character, who professes enjoyment of these encounters, is really supposed to have enjoyed them. The ambiguity struck me as intentional.